


By Morning's Light

by Legendary5



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Female Runner Five, Five and Sam Cuddle, Post-Mission: s01m09 A Voice in the Dark, lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 00:56:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20498228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendary5/pseuds/Legendary5
Summary: Lost in the dark all night, Five returns to Abel with zombies on her heels, and a fearful Sam in her ear. Afterwards, she opens up to the one person who didn't give up hope in her return. Spoilers for S01M08-09.





	By Morning's Light

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write a post-Voice in the Dark fic for a while, and I just got a new computer in July, so I figured it was time to get it started, and break in my new laptop. 
> 
> Spoilers for Season 1 Mission 9 (some minor spoilers for S01M08).
> 
> Dialogue in the first part is audio from the mission. 
> 
> I don't own Zombies, Run!.

She had never seen a more welcome sight than Abel Township gates before her, or the sound of Sam’s panicked joy in her ears.

“Runner Five? Runner Five, if you can hear me, I can see you!” She could almost see him in the comms shack, standing up from his chair, flattening his hair on his head. Oh, Sam…

“Oh my god, Runner Five… You can’t see them, but there’s a tail behind you. Zombies, about thirty of them. They’re getting closer, I-I dunno, they make that sound at night. Run, Runner Five! Run, run, run!”

She could hear the moans they made; it always sounded worse at night, but she didn’t date slow down or turn around.

Just keep running, she thought. Ignore the zombies. Ignore everything else. Listen to Sam….

“Raise the gates!” Sam’s voice was frantic in her ear. The sound of the gate siren blaring washed over her, and she did the first instinctive thing she thought of, and dived under the gate, sliding into Abel like a baseball player sliding into home plate.

_Home…._

She lay on the ground in front of the gates, her legs skinned from sliding through the gravel. All around her, lights were turning on, and voices could be faintly heard. But there was one sound Five yearned for, and she could hear him dashing across the way from the comms shack, heard his voice in her ear, and as he took her in his arms.

“We’ve got you, Runner Five! You’re home!”

* * *

Within minutes of her late-night arrival at Abel, Maxine had pulled Five from Sam Yao’s arms and to the medical shelter, and Janine had been awoken by the racket that heralded the runner’s return. Well, awoken was the wrong word. True, Janine had been in bed, but it was clear from her disheveled appearance that she had been as unable to sleep as Sam had been, despite the late hour.

“Good to see you alive and well, Runner Five,” Janine began stiffly.

“Alive, yes,” Maxine replied hotly. “Well is another matter entirely.”

“I – I wasn’t bitten,” Five began softly, and Maxine nodded.

“It doesn’t appear so,” Maxine confirmed, checking Five’s exposed skin. “Some cuts… scraps from sliding under the gate… thankfully nothing too serious. You probably weren’t bitten, but there is a chance of hypothermia, exhaustion, dehydration…”

“Five’s gonna be okay, right?” Sam asked from the med tent door. Five winced at the sound; he sounded like a small child asking for reassurance.

“I still want to see a full-body check done ASAP,” Janine ordered. Then her voice softened. “Five, I know you’ve been through a lot this evening, what with our mission to New Canton going awry, but I only ask for a few more minutes of your time.”

“But Five’s been out all night! She should get some rest, sleep it off…” Sam began, but trailed off at the glare Janine gave him.

“Mr. Yao, I must put the welfare of this township before the needs of Runner Five. If she, God forbid, has been bitten or scratched, and is harboring the zombie plague, and we allow her to ‘sleep it off,’ we could all be dead by this time tomorrow. Do you want that?”

“Sam, it’s fine,” Runner Five insisted. “Janine’s right; it’ll only take a few minutes, and then I can rest.”

With that, Sam was hustled out of the room by Maxine, made to sit on a wobbly wooden chair in front of a partition while he listened to the sound of rustling fabric as Five undressed and the soft murmurs of Janine and Maxine as they looked her over.

Sam’s entire body was tensed, a spring about to be released. All night long, he had been praying for and dreading this moment. Usually it was another routine part of coming back from a mission: bite check, quarantine if needed, and then the runner was back in the daily life of Abel within a few days.

_But what if Five was bitten,_ questioned a quiet voice in the back of Sam’s head. _What if they’d been infected and didn’t know? What if…_.

“Sam!”

“Wha – **_Ahhh!"_**

Maxine had stuck her head around the partition, and the sound of her voice made Sam jump in shock; he fell to the floor with the chair, the wobbly leg dislodging itself from the seat with his momentum. He looked up from the floor to see Maxine wincing at him from above.

“She’s fine, Sam. Some cuts and bruises, and a twisted ankle, but she’s good.” Maxine paused. “I’m gonna keep her here overnight for hypothermia, but you’re welcome to stay.”

“I may need a different chair,” Sam gestured to the floor around him. “Nothing else seems to be broken. Except my pride.”

Maxine chuckled before she pulled him to his feet and brought him back behind the partition. Janine was supervising Five as she climbed into the bed. Janine watched until Five appeared to be settled before she moved towards the door.

“Thank you, Doctor Myers,” Janine quietly acknowledged. “Please tell Five that I feel I should take some responsibility for what has happened tonight. It was not my intention to leave her out in the field, and I didn’t expect us to walk into a trap.”

“I’m sure she knows,” Maxine replied, leading Janine to the door. “Now I want you to go to bed; you look terrible, Janine.”

“I look no worse than Mr. Yao, and he’s the one who was on comms all night.”

“I’ll worry about Sam and Runner Five, Janine….”

Their voices trailed off as Maxine walked Janine out of the shelter and back to Janine’s house; he knew Maxine would be back soon to wrap up what she was working on for Five’s files.

_Five…._

Sam turned to see the runner apparently sleeping in the hospital bed, one of a few they had managed to pull from a medical supply warehouse once Abel had been established. He approached the bed, and settled himself on the edge, watching Five sleep for a moment.

“So….” He began. “I’m glad to see you’re okay, Five. I’m very happy you’re not dead, or a zom, or out in the dark, alone.” He sighed.

“I was really worried,” he continued. “And I’m sure Janine was, too, despite the very cold way she handled your return. I mean, she looked as bad as I feel.”

He heard the pillow shift and blankets rustle.

“I thought you said she was sleeping,” Five murmured, turning towards him and opening one eye.

“That was what I thought, when I went to her room to ask about the ice cream rolls.”

Five smiled wearily. “She must have really been worried.”

“Yeah… It’s not often that Janine, of all people, gets concerned. Certainly not about… y’know….”

“Losing a runner,” Five murmured, picking at the blanket.

There was an awkward silence between them, with Five picking at the blanket threads, and Sam staring at the room, looking anywhere than at her.

“So I’m the fourth Runner Five?"

Sam felt his face start to flush. “Yeah… yeah you are. There were a few other people before Alice, and she was before you. New Canton has a load of people, so they keep adding numbers. We only have about…. 19 or 20 runners. Sometimes the runners don’t even use numerical numbering, like the fact we have a Runner 22, but not a Runner 21. New Canton has a Runner 13, though. We don’t have a Runner 13, probably because we’re all superstitious.”

“I like being Runner Five,” Five admitted. She shifted, drawing the blankets closer to herself. Sam grabbed a spare one at the foot of her bed and cocooned himself into the fabric, laying down next to Five.

“You know, your number has a long history with Abel,” Sam continued. “I should tell you about it sometime.”

“Although, I do sometimes miss what life was like before. You were talking about life before the apocalypse. College, your parents.”

Sam nodded. He was started to realize how tired he was, but he was intent on staying awake for Five’s story.

“I was in college too. I’d nearly finished,” Five continued. “I decided to study abroad for a year, learn about English Literature and Writing in the place where so many of the great English writers had lived.” She chuckled.

“What?” Sam asked.

“It’s funny because all I wanted to do was write, but it’s not as easy as it looks, being on your own in a different country.” Five had gone back to picking at her blanket. “Sometimes, after class, I’d wander to a nearby café and read a book, or try to write an essay for a class, but I usually ended up writing really bad poetry, or a short story that never got finished.”

“Poetry? Like what?” Sam attempted to stifle a yawn, but failed.

“Haikus mostly,” Five admitted. “I think I still have my old poetry journal in my backpack.” She paused to yawn.

“Maggie Doane, Runner 6, will be happy to know there’s another writer in the township besides Raijit.”

Five continued. “My family life was… normal, I guess. More so growing up. My dad died… just before I started college. My brother was very supportive. He was in his second year of college when I left. We weren’t tight, but we could rely on each other. We used to go to the movies together, go to the lake. We even did some sports together. Her fingers suddenly stopped picking at the blanket.

“I lost contact with him shortly after Z-Day; he got a few messages through to me. And my mom and I were… we got along okay, but there were times where we would argue. She didn’t want me to go to England. She wanted me to finish up at home and start looking for a job afterward. The last thing I said to her was that… I wanted to get away before I was stuck at home forever.”

I’m sorry,” Sam replied.

Five’s face lifted into a sad smile. “We still exchanged emails and texts, but… phone calls were nonexistent after that. I tried calling her when the airports closed and I was heading to Mullins, but she didn’t answer when I finally got through.” She paused. “I have to believe they’re safe. It’s the only thing keeping me sane.”

Sam nodded. “I want to think that, with my sister. But since I haven’t heard from her…”

“Yeah,” Five murmured. “But with all this death, I need that little spark of hope.”

“Hope is good,” Sam said.

“Hope is always good,” Five repeated. Her eyelids were getting heavy, and the bed was so warm….

* * *

Maxine came back from escorting Janine back to her farmhouse to find Sam and Five sleeping on Five’s bed, their heads bent close together, as though they’d had a hushed conversation together before falling asleep.

She watched the pair for a moment, smiling as they continued to sleep before she returned to her desk to return Five’s file to her shelf. Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep anyway, Maxine returned to her desk, her eyes already on the horizon, looking for the light of dawn.


End file.
